


It's Hard To Let Things Die

by essence_of_annoying



Category: That Guy with the Glasses/Channel Awesome
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mental Instability, Other, POV Second Person, References to Stalking, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21968836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/essence_of_annoying/pseuds/essence_of_annoying
Summary: In which Hyper Fangirl muses about the unhealthy obsession that plagues her.
Relationships: Devil Boner/Hyper Fangirl, Hyper Fangirl/Nostalgia Critic (one sided)
Kudos: 2





	It's Hard To Let Things Die

**Author's Note:**

> this is partly a vent fic and partly character exploration, it's a bit structurally different from my other works? but still worth publishing i suppose.
> 
> note: I AM NOT DEFENDING ANYTHING HYPER DID. this is from her POV and meant to explain her twisted thought process which includes twisting her thoughts to avoid confronting her bad behavior. that is canon.

You're not over him.

You say you're over him and that he's not important to you anymore, that you have so many other things to pursue and don't need to chase him down anymore.

And you believe it, for a good long while. You can distract yourself so much more easily now. You have your fellow fans to gush over everything you love, your heart and mind are full of so many passions that realistically, they should push out all the suffocating feelings you had about him. _(But will they turn on me the second I disagree with them? Will they push me out if I don't make it abundantly clear that I'm the biggest fangirl and I deserve attention?)_

You have a huge following of people online who love you as well, no matter what you do. _(But so many of them want me to go back to him, that we're their OTP.)_

And then there's your new guy, who actually does love you back, who stares at you completely captivated no matter what you ramble about, who leaps to your defense whenever anybody gives you the slightest trouble, who despite his punk getup and hair-trigger temper is the most affectionate person you've ever met. _(And he's bound to leave you the second he finds somebody better, so you may as well be prepared to go back to your old tricks if you don't want to be completely alone again.)_

There's also Benny. Maybe. But you haven't talked to him in a few months. It's not that he's not a good friend; despite his quiet nature and tendency for brutal honesty whenever he _did_ speak, he was a great listener and protector and a surprisingly good romantic. But you always worried that spending too much time with the guy who helped you kidnap your crush might bring back those thoughts again, and you'd get hurt again.

Plus, you're a little afraid you might fall in love with Benny too. In your most fragile moments, just _being_ there is enough to win your heart.

It's not even the stalking and kidnapping you're opposed to. That's like, whatever, you've done shit like that practically your whole life. It's the fact that despite your best efforts, it all amounted to nothing, and only prompted the same old screaming rejection, which only got worse with time. You try to avoid it, and act like he secretly wants you, but deep down you have the nagging feeling that ~~he despises you and it was entirely your fault~~ maybe he just wants to stay friends.

~~Are you _bad?_~~

No, you can't be bad. Your parents encouraged you to push for what you want instead of crying all the time. Sometimes that involves breaking into a guy's house to force him to love you. Your parents can't be wrong. You're awesome and he just doesn't know what he's missing. Maybe. Probably. Hopefully.

Your parents also said that the only way anybody would give her weird ass any love was if they were stupid as hell, drunk as hell, or conned into it. Maybe they were just joking. After all, your new boyfriend said he loved you, hell, that he'd kill for you. But he seemed to have a healthy history of sleeping with gorgeous people, and he definitely got some looks on the street of not just fear but lust. And you're gorgeous, sure, people tell you that on the Internet all the time. But they tended to tell you that when you were talking about Critic.

Do you risk your fanbase for somebody who could stop loving you at any moment? Or would it be easier to go back to somebody who you could at least _control_ into loving you?

You still talk and all, about the latest movies and such rather than anything personal, but it's always weird. He's always a little shifty-eyed, a little uncomfortable, eyes on the exits. You established yourself as somebody to fear. On the one hand, that's cool that you have so much power. On the other hand, you kind of wish he could just like you normally.

Maybe you didn't push hard enough.

Maybe you pushed too hard in the wrong direction.

You could have gotten to know him as A Cool Snarky Guy You Can Talk To About Movies, not as The Guy Who Needs To Fall For You No Matter What You Need To Do To Him. He's fun to be around as a person, and not as a prize to be hunted down and flaunted as a trophy, as proof that it's possible for someone to love you, even if you have to squeeze the love out of him. (Back then, your standards for what constituted "love" were lower. You know better now that ~~he told you~~ you've had time to think.)

Is there a timeline out there where he could have been your best friend and maybe grown from there? And you didn't need to force it to happen? You could have let it happen?

Can you go back and do things better?

You have dreams sometimes where he comes back to you out of his own free will and forgives everything and it's all happy and good. And then you always wake up, back to reality. Back to your cats rubbing on you and your boyfriend burning the toast again and your sweet collections of fan merch, obsessions of things you're able to possess. And even as you enjoy yourself, you keep pretending that your dream is true.

Sometimes you start believing it's true.

When you're alone, it feels better to believe it's true.

And then one afternoon you're alone on your couch. Devil Boner just left with the promise, sealed with a kiss, to go out to Pottery Barn with you later, a major step in your relationship that indicates he might soon live with you full-time. Of course you never know if he'll even come back, especially with the crazy fights he gets into, and that echo of your parents' joke in your head. You pick up your phone and scroll through old photos, look at your old blogs and read your own fanfiction, bask in your own brilliant fanwork, the most solid proof that your passion pays off.

You start to delete a bad comment _(they hate your fic, they hate your ideas and beliefs and passions, they hate what you are, they want you dead)_ and then your phone rings. It's the executives you spoke to years ago, who prompted you as a key example of a good fangirl, somebody they relied on to pander to and make good money. So in a sense, they valued you.

They tell you that Nostalgia Critic _(god fucking damn it, your heart skips a beat at his name)_ is doing a review. _Phantom of the Opera._ You've never seen the movie, you admit, or even the original musical, but you'd drop everything to watch it if they needed you to. They say that's not necessary. Your face is enough. He wants you to play an egocentric prima donna. Your heart speeds a bit when you think about if that's how Critic sees you, but they quickly assure you that the character is gorgeous, beloved by many, and the statistics prove that you fit the bill for such a role. Critic himself wants it. ~~It's just a role and he's made it clear where he stands on dating you but~~ Critic considers you gorgeous. ~~You have a boyfriend now who gives you much kinder words but~~ Critic wants this. The fans want this.

It's quite the alternative to sitting in your room, all alone, hoping your boyfriend doesn't meet somebody on the battlefield who could rival you in beauty. It's ~~the exact same belief that ruined you last time~~ a fresh start with Critic. It's what you're good at. It's what you know. It's what people know you for. 

_(It's the only thing you're truly good for.)_

You say yes, you'll be there right away. You will give the fans what they want.


End file.
